Ontario politician calls constituent ‘transphobic’ at her doorstep

LifeSiteNews.com

TORONTO, Dec. 7, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A woman in the riding of Parkdale-High Park says she was verbally accosted on her doorstep by her MPP, Cheri DiNovo, after raising concern about Ontario’s recently passed trangender bill.

“She didn’t want to even have a conversation,” says the 49-year-old woman, who spoke to the Family Coalition Party but wished to remain anonymous. “When I tried to defend myself and express my worry that a man, any man, might try to claim to be ‘transgendered’ in order to enter a washroom to rape a girl or young woman, she said ‘that will never happen’.”

“What I’m really upset about is her name calling. She called me ‘transphobic’ several times. A very good friend of my family is transgendered,” the woman added. “I really did try to engage her in a conversation but she didn’t want to talk.”

The woman, who lives on Landsdowne Avenue, says she was visited by DiNovo on November 13th as the politician petitioned against the expected train traffic increase during the Pan Am Games.

DiNovo, the NDP’s critic for Women’s Issues, had championed the transgender bill, which passed in June. It added the phrases “gender identity” and “gender expression” to Ontario’s Human Rights Code.

The Family Coalition Party of Ontario was itself threatened with a lawsuit by the New Democrats after distributing information in DiNovo’s riding criticizing the bill.

“We asked NDP leader Andrea Horwath and Cheri DiNovo to sit down and discuss the matter, providing them the opportunity to explain how this bill will not affect public safety,” they say. “As a provincial political Party we are gravely concerned to see public representatives unwilling to be forthright about public matters, especially one of such a sensitive nature.”

LifeSiteNews.com contacted DiNovo but did not hear back by press time.